Ruminations

The texts my roommate was reading, which are much more in line with mainstream social theory, argue women are the most oppressed group in our society, victims of the patriarchy. They also promote the "double jeopardy" hypothesis, which says that women who are also minorities are doubly disadvantaged. What I was arguing, as a direct result of Sidanius and Veniegas' influence, however, is that women are, by and large, protected by the patriarchy (though it does exist and is oppressive), and it is actually black men who suffer the most, at the hands of white men.

The authors of the paper support their argument this way: women are not expendable, but men who are members of the "arbitrary set" (or artificially-defined "subordinates," like blacks in the U.S. or the pariahs of India) group are expendable. It is for this reason, the paper states, that warfare does not take place between men and women, but rather between men and men. In our contemporary society, where literal battlegrounds are few and far between, this ancient aggression plays out in smaller ways -- one need only look at the number of black men who are incarcerated to see this phenomenon in action. (Other examples explored in the Sidanius and Veniegas article include the percentage of black men who experience price gauging when purchasing a car from a white dealer, and prejudices black men experience in the job market.)

In addition to these issues, there is also a problem of racial disparity in Ferguson's police force. The town of Ferguson is two-thirds black, but, as CNN reports, only 3 of its 53 police officers are black. (In other words, ~75 percent of the population is black, but just 5 percent of the police force is.) And this pattern is not limited to Ferguson, but instead is seen in the composition police forces and SWAT teams across the country.

In context of Sidanius and Veniegas' paper, this issue clearly reflects two basic problems of male vs. male social structures. The first is that black men, the artificially subordinated group, are kept out of positions of power and prestige, from politics to, it seems, police forces. Secondly, it reflects the theory that white men who are in these privileged positions tend to exercise their power against the subordinated group. When white men make up the vast majority of police officers, and therefore carry the vast majority of pistols, tasers, and billy clubs, it is not only unsurprising, but almost expected, that such white male on black male violence should occur.